Wednesday, May 27, 2009

I would have never thought it would come a day where I would speak about this word. From a masculine perspective you are defying a societal norm when you speak openly and affectionately about that four letter word. By now all of you folks out there must know that I am speaking about....love.

Love is so powerful it can easily transform lives and turn a killer's stone cold heart into play dough while molding it into an instrument of love! LOVE is so strong that it can drive two inseparable individuals to the point of pure insanity. It can cause two people who are madly in love with each other to have animosity towards each other. It can also cause an odious person to dismantle their sinister walls.

For me though love has been elusive. Excluding my relatives and really close friends I cannot say that I have experienced this feeling. The feeling that bonds a boy friend and a girl friend or a happily married couple. The way it is described I imagine it to be a euphoric feeling of compassion that is hard to come by and even harder to dismiss. While I have had relationships with the opposite sex in which my feelings for them were strong, I don’t think it was love. Love for me has been elusive because I have yet to captivate what it is supposed to feel like. I guess it wouldn't be feasible to capture the emotion if I do not know what it is like. Or maybe I have loved somebody who I have had a casual relationship with but wasn't in love with them.

Although I haven't been in love I think I have been in extreme like with another person for lack of a better term. But at which point does like turn into love, is there a magical turning point where "like" instantaneously becomes love or is it a more gradual and steady process. Help me out people!!!??!?!?!? I do have one firm conviction about love and it is that the romanticized idea of love at first sight is a fallacy. I feel like you have to develop these feelings and they don’t just occur overnight.

When I was younger I never really thought about love or was never really in pursuit of it for that matter! I guess it was because I had limited interaction with females. But as I grew up and emerged as an adolescent and I began engaging females more often I started to develop feelings and some of these feelings were hard to describe. As I got older I became more interested in love because some of my peers at school and my loved ones would express their feelings for their significant others through what they called love. They would describe it with great fervor and speak of it so passionately which caused me to become curious. So I have been on a search ever since.

So love, love, love will I ever be able to attain it or experience this wondrous emotion? I sure hope that I will meet you in the future. Nothing is guaranteed though.. I guess if you search for something too hard it is at these times that it will most easily escape us! Maybe it will come in disguise or maybe it will be straightforward and plain. Maybe it will come expected or maybe unexpected. In whatever form it arrives and whenever it arrives I will be waiting for it.

Thursday, May 21, 2009

The psyche is very fragile, more specifically; direct observation of negative behavior in the household can be very detrimental to one's self-esteem. For example, children who have witnessed domestic violence are likely to view this heinous act as copacetic and therefore more prone to internalize it. Hence, children growing up in environments where disagreements are resolved with physical assaults will tend to handle their problems in a similar way. Their aggressive reactions are almost instinctive, as this is what was modeled for them from a very early age. These individuals endure grave psychological consequences which they may not be cognizant of how deeply those early years affected them. On the other hand there are situations where the dichotomy of nurture vs nature is not evident. In these scenarios nature and nurture coincide. Somebody could be born angry and also find domestic violence to be socially acceptable by having witnessed it at home. This combination of nurture and nature either increases individuals' likelihood of reenacting the domestic violence or of observing it without intervening.

Once we realize why we are the way we are we will begin to discover the secret of life. Now whether we use it to our advantage or take the gift for granted is up to us. We might be able to change this but some things are impossible to prevent from happening. For instance if you are born a certain way, you can’t completely change these circumstances but you can improve on any flaws that you may have been born with and that may end up hindering your growth. If your environment is affecting you negatively you can either try to physically modify your surroundings by moving out if you have the economic means or socially modifying your surroundings by changing your circle of friends to a group that will be most beneficial to your growth. Both of these tasks can be daunting and arduous but if the change will ultimately benefit you in the long run it will be best that it gets done sooner than later.

Another hindrance to personal growth is the reticence to change. The reason why people don’t want to change is because it takes them out of their comfort zone. Generally speaking we as a society do not want to partake in any action that deviates from the norm or that is different from what they are accustomed to. People that can modify their behavior or instantaneously change certain things that are constant in their life are really extraordinary individuals. As I digress I come back to the major point. Are we the way we are because of nature or nurture? I really do not know but I profess that our personal attributes and character traits are acquired from our physical, spiritual, social, and academic environments. The more we see a certain act reiterated and the more we are exposed to a certain activity the more prone we are to follow suit and mimic these actions. Its just a common law of social psychology. A good personification of this theory is the good musicians that grow up in musical households and as a result are exposed to the arts at an early age. In this scenario the child is subconsciously absorbing all of this. They internalize the richness of sounds and channel this energy into their own creation of music in the future. When you constantly observe or participate in a certain activity you begin to develop a higher level of understanding of this activity: for example if you are watching and playing basketball at the age of three; by the time you are an adult you have a higher likelihood of intuitively making plays or understanding the game better than the rest of your teammates.

The power of the subconscious lies in the fact that I might see it as normal but other people may find my talent amazing, but since it lies in my subconscious and I watched somebody perform this act over and over again the action becomes natural, automatic and part of my muscle memory. I don’t even think about doing the act. For example I am a dancer, and I speak with all humility when I say that some people are like wow how do you do that move and I tell them that I don’t know I just "dance". Another great example is people who play a certain instruments and hit unique notes or have unique styles. People can ask how do you play that note or have that style and they will reply "its hard to describe" or "I just feel it". It is because what is natural for them may not be natural to us in addition it may lie in our subconscious and we may not be fully aware of it. The innate nature of the talent propels greatness and exudes genius. This is why luminaries in any field perform so effortlessly!

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Life is fascinating, the more you I live the more I figure out that everybody has a story to tell. They are the way they are for a reason. Whether everybody's talents, mannerisms, and idiosyncrasies are acquired through genetic circumstances or learned from the environment. Every single person has a life with a wealth of experience that makes them who they are. Some people may not know they do the things they do or why they are a certain way but it requires a certain amount of insight in order to figure that out!

The more introspect you develop as years pass by the more you will get to know who you are. At times other people know us better than ourselves. That to me is mind boggling, that an external source can have a more accurate assessment of our traits and personal psychology. I am going to use me as an example. I say or do certain things because it lies in my subconscious while on the other hand my friend or sister may be able to pinpoint every time I mention something that has a deeper psychological meaning or every time I express a certain emotion that I am not cognizant of.

It is also powerful to meet somebody who shares a lot of our personal story. You may have just met the person and you might feel more of a connection with that person you just met than with somebody you have known for years. Like many things in life it doesn't make much sense but it works out for the better. Sometimes it doesn't even have to be anybody who you met physically. For example you could have seen somebody on a talk show who you felt an intimate connection with. Or it could have been a pen pal that you had. Outside of the real world I have made connections through the work of music artists I listen to. The artists I follow have no veil of privacy in their life they make it an open book, you get to know the artist and become familiarized with their strengths flaws, character, upbringing, and their trials and tribulations. Then you start to have things in common and become even closer to them. Not to say that you can't develop a relationship with some body different but having things in common closes the gap unfamiliarity.

My other question is how people get to be the way they are. This is where the psychological argument of nurture vs nature comes into play. Are people born with certain qualities and gifts or did their environment and personal experiences shape them as a person?

Of course there is no straightforward answer to this. Other things like manners and social interactions are absorbed from social environments (especially at the home) and then they are internalized. For example I am a thinker and I honestly believe that I was born with that gift. But to be honest maybe my environment gave me space to think. In addition my upbringing would have played a pivotal role as well. Although my upbringing could have fostered this attribute, my ambitions and desire to search for knowledge and new pieces of information has guided me to this path of self enlightenment. Several factors played a role in the harnessing of my talent.

As I progressively thought about money I began to think about all the things that I could purchase with money. I bought several possessions! Money consumed my every thought. Materialism is a strong force and it can propagate the domination of your thoughts by money. Once I purchased my first item I purchased another one and another one. I asked my self, why are you buying all these material possessions as if they are ameliorating your well being or making you a better person. Am I buying these things because I want to look good or because I think my possessions will make me feel better about myself? I have succumbed to the hypnosis of money but every time I walk around wearing a new item the euphoric feeling fades away. I went to bars and clubs on weekends with an heir of arrogance as if I was better than everybody because I had money. A couple of weeks later I was able to suppress these feelings. They are still there but they are minimized.

Essentially money for me and a lot of other people is a way of survival. For others it provides a certain level of comfort that allows them to do whatever it is they enjoy doing (ie traveling skiing) or buy whatever it is they desire ( a yacht or a pair of sneakers). For others it gives them a reason to glamorize their lifestyle and live ostentatiously while proving to the world that they are not only worth their money but superior because of it. Materialism at its best is used to fill a personal void!

From my standpoint every item you purchase is accumulating baggage that begins to deteriorate your inner well being. Society has conditioned us to think that money can be used to equate our self worth or to provide us with a sense of pride and elitism in connection to our possessions.Money is a vice and a virtue. Hopefully the virtue outweighs the vice!

Although I was never fully polluted by materialism I was briefly attached to material goods. I must admit in the past I have been mesmerized by the green and I am not the only one! The green which is also known as money is the leafy substance that determines our material wealth.

Money is a gift and a curse. It is a gift in many ways. It can provide people who are devoid of resources with academic opportunities (scholarships, grants, and construction of good schools). It can also salvage a poor soul who is hanging off an economic cliff and is clutching for dear income (unemployment or bankruptcy). In addition money can liberate a homeless person from their misery. On the contrary money can be a toxin. It has the capacity of polluting every dimension of our human existence. It can emotionally drown us, psychologically choke us, socially demonize us, and mentally incapacitate us. Money can only reach these extreme heights if we allow it to.

Money is like a drug it is very addictive. Once you catch a glimpse of it you want more and more. if you want it bad enough you will do whatever it takes to get it, even kill a person! When I got my first paycheck at my first full time job I was in a trance. Honestly I looked at my first paycheck and became attached to it! After I cashed it I watched it closely. Everywhere I went all I could think about was the money.

Friday, May 8, 2009

It is now 5:05pm and I am in my friends house in Syracuse University (my alma amater). I would have never thought that this would arrive so quickly!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Just a year ago I was organizing my room, preparing my cap and gown, and getting ready to embark on a weekend journey of commencement.

The experience is surreal. I feel like I am here physically but mentally and psychologically I feel detached like I am in limbo. I know it sounds obscure but I feel like I don't belong here. I mean that in the best way possible..nobody has made me feel uncomfortable its just that I dont feel the same connection to the institution compared to when I was a student here. Is that normal???????? Just a year ago I hit the post grad depression hard and all I could think about were all the social clubs I was involved with along with the friends and faculty I had forged significant connections with. Maybe its because I haven't seen any of my close friends yet or maybe its because thats how you are supposed to feel when you have surpassed a certain stage in your life.

The feeling is sort of indescribable...its a paradox, I feel like I belong but at the same time I feel like dont! Maybe in late June I felt like I belonged because I was a recent graduate but since now I am a year removed from the undergraduate experience I have emotionally distanced myself from the lifestyle and mind state of college. If people ask me would you do it all over again... I would empahatically say yes. Ohhh man what an experience, I cant begin to describe what an enlightening experience my time at Syracuse was. It was well balanced with work and fun and it also fostered my social, intellectual, and spiritual development. They say the people make the the place, that it is no more truer than at Syracuse. I met people that have shaped me as a person and I have learned something from every person I've had interactions with even if they were brief. Everybody I have met and all the experiences I have had (the negative and the positive), have made me a better person. From my freshman year to my senior year I grew so much as a person.

Sunday May 10

As the weekend progressed I began to feel more comfortable and I was able to successfully reassimilate to the college life. I began to feel like a "kid" again with no responsibilities. It was a beautiful escape from reality for three long days! Attending all the ceremonies and graduations was reminiscent of my own commencement ceremonies. Going to different functions and social events over the weekends also reminded me of what the college life was like. I basically relived the experience and pure nostalgia is all I could remember. Every time I would pass a dining hall or a place on Marshall street I would recall an event that occurred in that same exact place. The feeling was utterly indescribable. Again I reiterate, physically I feel like I was there but my mind and my spirit would wander. It was like a outer body experience. I know it sounds pretty outlandish. Well thats it. I saw the people that made a difference in my life and I bumped into people who's lives I had touched during my college career. I also saw one of my close friends graduate. It was a great time and I had a blast. I loved my experience at Syracuse and it made me a better person. I have now moved on but I will NEVER forget where I came from.